Power outages are affecting many of Detroit's main buildings today. Workers at Detroit's city hall were told not to report to work this morning. From the Detroit News:

Numerous municipal buildings throughout the city's downtown area remained without power this morning after the city's antiquated public power system failed because of high demand for air-conditioning following a stretch of 90-degree weather earlier this week.

One of the city's five power lines at the Misterky Power Plant failed Wednesday and two others went down on Thursday, leaving the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building, the Detroit Public Library, Wayne State University, the Detroit Institute of Arts, several federal buildings and Detroit Public Schools without electrical service, officials said.

The city hoped to have the problem fixed this afternoon.

Group wants American Indian casino in Lansing After failing to get enough signatures to put the issue on the August ballot, the Associated Press reports that a group is still moving ahead with a plan to bring an American Indian casino to Lansing:

Ted O'Dell, chairman of Lansing Jobs Coalition, tells the Lansing State Journal for a story Friday that he'll ask City Council members to approve his request before trying a ballot issue. He wants to gather enough signatures to get it on the city's November ballot. O'Dell's group did not submit the number of signatures needed to put the issue on the August ballot. In April, a group aiming to build casinos in Lansing and six other Michigan cities launched a process that could put the measure before state voters this fall. "Michigan is Yours" needs more than 300,000 signatures from registered voters across the state. The effort failed to make the 2010 state ballot.

Pit Bull ban tabled

A bill to ban pit bulls in the state won't see any action in the state legislature. From the Detroit Free Press:

A legislative attempt to eventually ban pit bull ownership in Michigan has been leashed.

State Rep. Tim Bledsoe, D-Grosse Pointe, introduced the legislation to make it illegal to own a pit bull after a 10-year phaseout.

But the chairman of the Regulatory Reform Committee in the state House, Rep. Hugh Crawford, R-Novi, said he's not planning to move on the bill, effectively shelving it.

New casinos would open in seven Michigan cities, under a measure a group hopes to get onto the ballot in 2012.

Bill Thompson is a casino expert from Las Vegas who helped draft the proposed constitutional amendment, which calls for a 19% wagering tax for the casinos. He says it would raise about $400 million in tax revenues. More than half the money would fund college scholarships and a tourism ad campaign.

Thompson says much of the rest would go to the communities that host the casinos:

"This will bring money into Saginaw, Benton Harbor – two cities that are in desperate financial situations, also Lansing, Grand Rapids – two cities that need help."

The measure also calls for casinos in Mount Clemens, Detroit and Romulus, where Alan Lambert is the mayor:

"There’s so many people out of work. In my own community there’s a lot of people out of work. So to a city like Romulus this means revenue obviously, and it means a lot of jobs."

Detroit’s three existing casinos will likely put on a vigorous fight to block the measure. And since it’s a statewide vote, opponents say it takes away residents’ rights to decide whether they want a casino in their communities.

Macomb County executive Mark Hackel says a privately owned casino could boost business along the county's waterfront on Lake St. Clair. The Macomb Daily reports: Mark Hackel said he plans to reach out to local communities to see who might be interested.

After years of watching its residents travel to Michigan, Indiana, or Pittsburgh for gaming, Ohio is getting in on the action. Cleveland kicked off its first casino development yesterday.

Developers say they’ll spend $350 million to convert a former department store in the center of the city into a place for slot machines and poker.

Behind all this is Dan Gilbert, the Cavaliers owner and founder of Michigan’s Quicken Loans. He sees this casino as the first phase of gaming in Cleveland. He’ll be building a casino from scratch a few blocks away.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson says the project should create hundreds of local jobs.

They’re actually talking about how can we hire people? How can we hire local contractors, local vendors and make this investment a stimulus for this economy and the people of this city and region.

Dan Gilbert says the Cleveland casino will be integrated into the city, helping local businesses.

Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who bilked millions from several Indian tribes including Michigan's Saginaw Chippewas, has officially been released from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The Associated Press reports Abramoff spent the last several months of his four-year prison sentence on home confinement with an electronic monitoring bracelet. The halfway house he was assigned to set Abramoff up with a job at a kosher pizzeria in Baltimore.

The AP reports that Abramoff worked at Tov Pizza, "a modest kosher pizzeria in a heavily Jewish section of northwest Baltimore. Abramoff, 51, is an Orthodox Jew and wore a yarmulke to work."